Detective Comics #32 – Review

By: Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato (storytellers)

The Story: Family can make you do crazy things…

The Review: Manapul and Buccellato continue to give me flash backs to Batman’s transitional periods in the 70s and early 80s in this month’s issue of Detective Comics. It’s not quite hardboiled the way many Gotham yarns are, nor is it as heady as a classic detective story might be, but there’s a groundedness that you just don’t get much of these days.

Gotham may be a bigger focal point of Batman’s stories than ever in the age of Snyder, but Tec puts the focus back on the latter half of Gotham City. It’s easy to see Gotham as some small personal chess board for Batman and the Joker, but there’s a reestablishment of perspective that makes the city feel large and teaming with individual lives, not to mention making Batman feel more vulnerable. The focus on gang violence and drugs also reminds of the late Bronze Age, while a sinister force within Wayne Industries points to a return to the themes of legacy and personal responsibility that often appeared in Bruce Wayne’s more socially conscious days.

But lest you think this was some social-justice noir utopia, don’t forget that this was the era of Man-Bat, Maxie Zeus, and Nocturna, for our writers certainly haven’t. Indeed, the title seems to have a real appreciation for the fading gimmickry of the pre-Crisis period, with Sumo being carted off at the start of the issue and The Squid appearing again towards the end.

Detective Comics #30 – Review

By: Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato (storytellers)

The Story: If Francis Manapul wants to draw motorbikes he is going to draw motorbikes and you are going to like it.

The Review: Though I adored his extended Emperor Penguin arc, John Layman’s Detective Comics had lost a bit of energy by the end and, while it’s sad to see a writer with a great sensibility go, the title was ready for some new blood. Well this week it gets it in the form of Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato.

This is a version of Tec with very different feel. There aren’t any major supervillian battles, nor is there all that much sleuthing, instead Batman is simply following his promise to make Gotham a better place. That goal leads us into an impressive battle through the heart of Gotham’s China Town.

Though the art doesn’t play with the comics form the way that early issues of Manapul and Buccellato’s Flash did, they’ve somehow managed to make this comic look even more beautiful than their last collaboration. Where Flash did some amazing things with bright primary colors, the shift to a cooler palette proves a great move. There’s a level of incredibly fine detail in this panels and all Gotham looks as if it’s cloaked in a thin mist, perfect for a detective story. The opening splash is especially impressive but all throughout the panels are moody, the faces are detailed, and the colors are beautiful.

Dial H #4 – Review

By: China Miéville (story), Mateus Santolouco (art), Tanya & Richard Horie (colors)

The Story: Apparently, it doesn’t take a hero or a dial to dial a hero.

The Review: Last month, I expressed some concern that for all the ambitious, high-concept, clearly ubiquitous material Miéville has been writing, it might come to lead to a whole lot of big ideas with little payoff.  Miéville fans quickly assured me that things will eventually fall into place, that this author knows what he’s doing, even when the story seems haphazard and somewhat obscure.

And indeed, things have fallen into place, so I’m mightily chagrined at having doubted that they never would.  All the loose, disparate elements of the arc finally reveal some clear connections to each other in a way I didn’t think possible.  Of course, it takes quite a bit of creative, out-of-this-world explanation to link a ghetto-talking reptile alien, a doctor/occultist, and a fat dude with a magic telephone dial together, but Miéville manages to do it, which is worth praise in itself.

Dial H #3 – Review

By: China Miéville (story), Mateus Santolouco (art), Tanya & Richard Horie (colors)

The Story: More proof that the telephone is a conspiracy to bring down civilization.

The Review: No matter where you go or what you do, you’ll always run into elitists.  These folks can’t help separating the high-brow from the low-brow, and making you feel like a Philistine if you don’t make those same distinctions.  In the world of comics, these people tend to refer to anything involving superheroes as “mainstream” (said in a condescending tone).  They’ll see the entertainment value, but it won’t live up to their lofty ideals of what comics should be.

And you know, they’re not entirely wrong.  No one can deny that the primary appeal of the superhero genre is all about escapism.  We gravitate towards particular titles sometimes because of the depth of their stories, but mostly because we resonate with those characters and want to embody them in some way.  Dial H taps into that escapist quality, allowing its protagonist to fulfill our secret dreams to be better than ourselves.